


The Naming of Albus Severus

by Kaylar



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 09:21:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11010525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaylar/pseuds/Kaylar
Summary: Baby names are hard. Luckily, George has a solution.





	The Naming of Albus Severus

It had started as a bit of a joke.

  
Coming up with a name for their first child had been easy enough, but once they realized that Ginny was pregnant with another boy, and that Harry was effectively out of dead fathers to name this one after, they had soon found themselves a bit stuck. They bought books of baby names from both the muggle and wizarding world, flipped through parenting magazines, and went through their respective family trees, but nothing caught their fancy the way James had.

  
Ginny had suggested fairly early on that they name the child after someone who had died in the war, but they found they couldn’t pick one without feeling like they were slighting the others.

  
Names were thrown back and forth, with Cedric taking the lead once Ginny had firmly told Harry that she would not promise to carry a third child just so he could avoid having to choose between Sirius and Remus.

  
Unfortunately, once she was in her last trimester, Ginny had also firmly told Harry that the baby didn’t feel like a Cedric, and that they would have to pick something else. Harry knew better than to argue the point, but as Cedric had been the only name they’d been able to agree on it did pose a bit of an issue.

  
“Just pick one out a hat or something,” George said. They had brought James to the Burrow for Sunday brunch, and George had quickly become exasperated with their back and forth. Ginny was due in less than a month, and they were starting to panic.

  
“We can’t do that,” Ginny said, laughing. “What if we end up picking something awful?”

  
George shrugged. “You kid will probably hate you a bit once they get to their teens, but most kids do that anyway so you’ll be no worse off.”

 

“Fair point,” conceded Harry, smiling. “We’ll keep that as a last resort, I think.”

  
From there it had kind of snowballed. The next weekend, upon finding that they still hadn’t picked, George had promptly transfigured a nearby tea cozy into a hat and waved it at them every time the subject of baby names came up.

  
From there the hat had grown more elaborate, as George charmed it to play an off-key lullaby, change between shades of baby blue, pink, and yellow, and, finally, to shout, “Just bloody pick something already!” in a voice that sounded suspiciously like Ron’s between off-key renditions of ‘You Are My Sunshine.’

  
Finally, they gave in and wrote down the names of every person they could think of who they were grateful to for their part in the war. The final count was somewhere around 35. The names were put in a regular hat (they didn’t trust the singing hat not to give them a terrible name on purose) and stuffed into Ginny’s to go bag with a stack of crosswords. Ginny absolutely hated the waiting around part of labour (“It’s worse than the actual pain, Harry, honestly. I was in labour for 14 hours with James. FOURTEEN HOURS of doing nothing but walking back and forth in a small room hating my internal organs.”), so they made sure to pack things for her to do between contractions.

  
But apparently their child was as impatient for them to pick a name as everyone else was (They had received no less than 6 lists of potential names from Hermione, with each name accompanied by its etymological origin and modern-day popularity ranking), because this time the labour lasted only about an hour.

  
“Okay,” Harry said, bringing the hat over while they waited for the nurse to return with their son. “We’d better do this before they come back with the paperwork.”

  
Ginny nodded and they arranged the hat on a nearby end table. “You do it, Harry,” Ginny said. “I’m too nervous.”

  
“Yeah right,” he said, smirking. “You just want to be able to blame it on me if he hates it.”

  
Ginny grinned. “Guess you’re not just a pretty face after all, eh Potter?”

  
“Just don’t tell anyone. I’m trying to keep low profile.” They looked at each other and snorted, and Harry picked a name from the hat.

  
For a long moment he said nothing, reading and rereading the slip of parchment.

  
“What?” Ginny asked. “Is it Cedric? Because I **told** you he isn’t a-“

  
“Severus.”

  
Ginny stared at him for a long moment. “He’ll hate it.”

  
“Ours or Snape?” Harry asked, then grimaced as the attempt at humour fell flat.

  
“We could make it his middle name,” Ginny suggested slowly, “And pick another one for the first?”

  
He nodded stiffly and thrust the hat at her. “You pick this one. Apparently I’m still a magnet for bad luck.”

  
Ginny took the hat silently and swished the names around, then drew another slip of parchment.

  
“Albus,” she read, and they sat together in silence for several minutes.

  
“Don’t suppose you want to chime in and say this one doesn’t feel right either?” Harry asked tentatively.

  
Ginny slowly shook her head. “No, this actually does feel right,” she said apologetically.

  
“Of course it does.”

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, I can't believe I haven't posted anything to this account yet. Anyway, this is unbetad and is basically just an idea I had this evening and decided to try writing it out. Sorry if I'm super rusty, it's been a while since I've written regularly.
> 
> Anyway, this was ever-so-slightly based on a cousin of mine. She and her husband had picked out the name Riley long before their son was born, but once he came she immediately felt like the name didn't work and picked Regan instead. For a while everyone thought it was a terrible decision, but Regan is 14 now and I can't imagine calling him Riley. I thought it would be neat if there had been a similar feeling involved with Albus.


End file.
